“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to
pass,
it’s about dancing in the rain.”
Starting in
Brooklyn and moving to Long Island, I was always the girl with the stay at home
Dad instead of the stay at home Mom like everyone else. My mother was an Office Administrator at a
Law firm, and my Father was a freelance cartoonist. I was introduced to the field of law when it
came to “bring your daughter to work day,” the law firm was that which included
many valued attorneys, paralegals, and other staff members. Regardless of the
fact that I didn’t know the difference between knowing the law and
understanding the law, I was fascinated with how everything worked in the
office. How smoothly everything ran, how
every one had their own opportunities and ways to continue bettering their
careers, the “cases” they gave us to read which were obviously made up. However, it made me feel like even though I
was just another one of their staff members’ daughter, I was part of it. I would read the most boring of cases just
because the way the arguments worked interested me. The loopholes in some situations, the obvious
facts, and the sometimes misinterpreted ones.
I loved
typing. I don’t understand why, even to
this day it is a hobby for me. I enjoy
taking the WPM tests online and seeing how fast I can go. I enjoy reading, analyzing, and articulating
my own view points; playing the devil’s advocate with everything. In my senior year of high school, I knew law
was my chosen profession so I took a criminal justice elective. I instantly applied to John Jay College and
got accepted so I went with that, one application, one college, and it was
close to home. I took every elective I
could: Government, Forensic Linguistics, Anthropology, etc.
However, during
this journey of college my home was under the process of being foreclosed and
my parents were suffering with drug problems.
Everything was ending, our place of living, our lives, and our
relationships. It seemed surreal that we
only had a few months to just find somewhere to live, while my parents were
coping with getting better. Nobody was doing anything to stop it, to try
and slow it down, it was as if everyone wanted my family gone. I couldn’t believe there was no one to call
that could even attempt to help my parents figure out a way to keep their home
and health being they had 3 children. It
tore my family apart, we came back strong but it was a rough journey. When the move was over, I applied to the New
York Career Institute for Paralegal studies, just to further familiarize myself
with the idea of law itself. The LSAT’s
always intimidated me, so I figured I would start small, work my way up. However, I loved everything. Both Real Estate and Criminal Law in
particular when I thought family law was going to be the one that sucked me in.
I am currently
enrolled in my last semester at NYCI and graduate in May of 2015. I plan to take the LSAT’s in June. I would like to work as a paralegal and
continue my education with law in order to one day become an attorney. I am an efficient worker, an organized
person, profound in time management, and have a strong desire to continuously
improve my career in law. I can’t wait
to jump in!
Jillian Gold
2015
